Game Blackballed from MTV Music Awards

[xxrayrayxx]

MTV has fell off. MTV IS NO LONGER RELAVENT. They dont even play music videos anymore. They only skim through a few of them. BET is on the same route that MTV went down too. ITs all about reality television. Why should it matter if Game was there or not.

You don't think that helped Lil Wayne sell mad units when MTV told everyone on their award show to go buy the Carter IV on ITunes?  Imagine had Game got his mention also.

Sure it helped because all the little Jimmys and Jennys that are still in Junior High who still watch MTV will get their hands on it. But to true fans of music MTV is nothing more than a disappointment. I can still remember the days when they had like 4 or 5 different countdown shows playing different music throughout. These days you gotta tune into MTV2 in the butt crack of dawn to watch videos. Its a shame. MTV turned their back on music because they saw that the whole damn country was goo goo for reality TV. Okay BET came in and took advantage but that only lasted a few years. BET is BLACK ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION. So you cant argue them making television series and movies and what not. Its their brand but MTV is MUSIC TELEVISION. They turned their back on the Music part. They dont even play the full length of the videos anymore.

who cares about their award shows.

[DeeezNuuuts83]

The South didnt really have an identity until Crunk came along with the finger snappin and deep southern base. Eightball & MJG, Outkast, Bushwick Bill, Scarface were mostly rappin over Westcoast beats and some were even usin G-Funk tracks in the South in the 90's.  Even when No Limit came along they were still "West Coast Bad Boyz."

That doesn't matter all that much.  It's about the rappers, not the producers.  Ice Cube had A LOT of East Coast beats on his solo debut... it's still West Coast rap.  But I think the South did have their own sound, though it didn't end up as unique until crunk, though it was just kind of similar to West Coast, but it was still different.

On the East, Nas, LL, Naughty, Wu Tang, and B.I.G. was the big faces and they got their play.

And on the West, we had Ice Cube, Cypress Hill, Dr. Dre, Snoop, Tha Dogg Pound, 2Pac, Coolio, etc. who had videos getting rotation on MTV at that time.

[chicharo]

what the hell u guys talking about mtv dont play no videos, am i the only one with mtv jams all they do is play videos. no need for trl when u got like 4 channels constantly playing videos, i rather watch teen mom anyway lol

[love33]

MTV has fell off. MTV IS NO LONGER RELAVENT. They dont even play music videos anymore. They only skim through a few of them. BET is on the same route that MTV went down too. ITs all about reality television. Why should it matter if Game was there or not.

You don't think that helped Lil Wayne sell mad units when MTV told everyone on their award show to go buy the Carter IV on ITunes?  Imagine had Game got his mention also.

Sure it helped because all the little Jimmys and Jennys that are still in Junior High who still watch MTV will get their hands on it. But to true fans of music MTV is nothing more than a disappointment. I can still remember the days when they had like 4 or 5 different countdown shows playing different music throughout. These days you gotta tune into MTV2 in the butt crack of dawn to watch videos. Its a shame. MTV turned their back on music because they saw that the whole damn country was goo goo for reality TV. Okay BET came in and took advantage but that only lasted a few years. BET is BLACK ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION. So you cant argue them making television series and movies and what not. Its their brand but MTV is MUSIC TELEVISION. They turned their back on the Music part. They dont even play the full length of the videos anymore.

who cares about their award shows.

I agree 100% about this post, but there's still something iconic about the Music Television Award Show.  Call me old school, but back in the day there was something exciting about gettin home from school, puttin your backpack down, and throwin on mtv's most wanted to watch bill bellemy countdown cube, warren g, and dr dre videos....and when the award show comes there was that mad hype to see snoop, dogg pound, dre, warren g, and nate get on stage and run the show.  Now, its a fraction of what the show used to represent amongst music culture.  Cross your fingers and close your eyes and pray "Hey will they invite my favorite rappers to the show or did Lady Gaga take their spot."

[Chamillitary Click]

So yeah, bottom line. He didn't get Blackballed, he just isn't as big of a name in Hip Hop. Kanye, Jay & Wayne represented Hip Hop. Gaga represented Pop. Adele represented whatever you want to call her music. Beyonce was there for Pop.

There was just no room for Game & his no hit records. I mean "Red Nation" & "Pot Of Gold" are INSANELY less popular & successful as Wayne & Jay/Kanye's singles...

[Jimmy H.]

I agree with you that Jay-Z sells more right now, but it's also because:
1. He has the whole city of NY behind him (walk into NY and say some of the shit people say here about Game calling him "fake," a "namedropper," "washed up," "irrelevant," whatever and poeple would smack you in NY if you said that about Jigga -- he gets mad respect on his territory) -- Game even said it in interviews, the biggest problem on the West is that the West hates the West.  So a hot artist from Cali drops an album and only a quarter of the people support it.  Where in the East and especially the South, the people support the artists.  People love Jay-Z in NY.  Go read some of the topics here and 50% of the people hate The Game.  Except for 2Pac, there's barely any Westcoast artists that get close to a unanimous curtain call.
2. Getting his main video banned (again) didn't help his cause -- the R.E.D. Nation being banned just cut right into his sales as that video was going to be the main piece that pushed the project.  The Lil Wayne track he had on L.A.X. helped give him a late push --
3. Game doesn't make shit off his mixtapes.  His mixtapes don't put food on the table, but he has given us enough good free tracks the past year to make 3-4 good albums.
4. He doesn't make nearly close to the amount of television appearances that Jay-Z gets.
5. He doesn't get free promotion from ESPN all the time (Jay-Z gets mentioned on ESPN constantly because he owns the 40/40 club in NY and he owns part of the NJ Nets).  The Sportscenter announcers even use his rhymes in their highlights and they show his face all the time like they are told to dickride him by their higher ups.
6. Jay-Z gets more Hollywood mention because he is with Beyonce so TMZ is always following her around and when he's with her it keeps his name in people's mouths and his face in people's minds.
7. Jay-Z has the largest media market in the country on his side.  NY is the biggest media giant and pumps his music, promotes his local events.  LA is no cow town either, but it's not nearly the mass size of the NY media market which also ties in the New Jersey market and outreaches all the way to DC and Boston.  Covering that kind of population and the radio power gives any NY artist an advantage whether it's Jay-Z or LL Cool J.  That's a machine over there and they always try to blow their own artists up rather than play everyone else's music like most of the West stations.

And that's why I give him his props because nobody on the West is dropping the amount of quality material that Game has dropped all year on us that you can just pump into your cd player and let play.  "Hoodmorning" and "Purp and Patron" were like album releases in themselves and they all fit the "R.E.D." theme Game has been working off of this year so you gotta give him props musically for being consistent in 2011.

He doesn't have the WHOLE CITY of New York behind him. In coming up, he got way more backlash than a Game did from anyone. It was the same with Eminem. Cats just fucking hated them. Game is big as a rap artist but he hasn't quite crossed over into popular culture as the kind of household name that say an Eminem or Jay-Z or Snoop Dogg or 50 Cent has. And part that is just the fact that them dudes know how to keep their name poppin'.

The reality is Game killed his own momentum going at 50. I think the most costly thing he ever did was creating that G-Unot campaign after him and 50 squashed their enitial problems. He was already free of being involved with G-Unit at that point and it was a rare instance where 50 extended an olive branch. When he went all-out to try and smash them, he basically just killed both their sales in the long run. 

[DeeezNuuuts83]

Cross your fingers and close your eyes and pray "Hey will they invite my favorite rappers to the show or did Lady Gaga take their spot."

Oh, Lady Gaga who sells more albums than all of your favorite rappers, gets more YouTube views, etc.?  MTV must be out of their minds to give her a spot over Game and your other favorite rappers.

[Triple OG Rapsodie]

MTV has fell off. MTV IS NO LONGER RELAVENT. They dont even play music videos anymore. They only skim through a few of them. BET is on the same route that MTV went down too. ITs all about reality television. Why should it matter if Game was there or not.

You don't think that helped Lil Wayne sell mad units when MTV told everyone on their award show to go buy the Carter IV on ITunes?  Imagine had Game got his mention also.

Sure it helped because all the little Jimmys and Jennys that are still in Junior High who still watch MTV will get their hands on it. But to true fans of music MTV is nothing more than a disappointment. I can still remember the days when they had like 4 or 5 different countdown shows playing different music throughout. These days you gotta tune into MTV2 in the butt crack of dawn to watch videos. Its a shame. MTV turned their back on music because they saw that the whole damn country was goo goo for reality TV. Okay BET came in and took advantage but that only lasted a few years. BET is BLACK ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION. So you cant argue them making television series and movies and what not. Its their brand but MTV is MUSIC TELEVISION. They turned their back on the Music part. They dont even play the full length of the videos anymore.

who cares about their award shows.

I agree 100% about this post, but there's still something iconic about the Music Television Award Show.  Call me old school, but back in the day there was something exciting about gettin home from school, puttin your backpack down, and throwin on mtv's most wanted to watch bill bellemy countdown cube, warren g, and dr dre videos....and when the award show comes there was that mad hype to see snoop, dogg pound, dre, warren g, and nate get on stage and run the show.  Now, its a fraction of what the show used to represent amongst music culture.  Cross your fingers and close your eyes and pray "Hey will they invite my favorite rappers to the show or did Lady Gaga take their spot."

Gangsta rap was big in the 90s, now its not. The same reason you weren't seeing any alternative rappers on MTV "back in the day." Don't you think The Pharcyde fans in 1995 were pissed off that your cliche gangsta music was taking up all the spots?

[EFFeX]

what the hell u guys talking about mtv dont play no videos, am i the only one with mtv jams all they do is play videos. no need for trl when u got like 4 channels constantly playing videos, i rather watch teen mom anyway lol

Yeah that seems to be a fact that gets overlooked a lot. MTV Jams actually plays some decent videos too from a lot of artists you wouldn't expect.

[Smackdog]

west west yall

[Jimmy H.]

what the hell u guys talking about mtv dont play no videos, am i the only one with mtv jams all they do is play videos. no need for trl when u got like 4 channels constantly playing videos, i rather watch teen mom anyway lol

Yeah that seems to be a fact that gets overlooked a lot. MTV Jams actually plays some decent videos too from a lot of artists you wouldn't expect.

They actually did an entire run on the "New West" not too long ago which included Jay Rock's video with Kendrick Lamar. Odd that they would do that when they're supposedly BLACKBALLING the entire coast.

[BOX5 the best poster on this site yell]

MTV has fell off. MTV IS NO LONGER RELAVENT. They dont even play music videos anymore. They only skim through a few of them. BET is on the same route that MTV went down too. ITs all about reality television. Why should it matter if Game was there or not.

You don't think that helped Lil Wayne sell mad units when MTV told everyone on their award show to go buy the Carter IV on ITunes?  Imagine had Game got his mention also.

Sure it helped because all the little Jimmys and Jennys that are still in Junior High who still watch MTV will get their hands on it. But to true fans of music MTV is nothing more than a disappointment. I can still remember the days when they had like 4 or 5 different countdown shows playing different music throughout. These days you gotta tune into MTV2 in the butt crack of dawn to watch videos. Its a shame. MTV turned their back on music because they saw that the whole damn country was goo goo for reality TV. Okay BET came in and took advantage but that only lasted a few years. BET is BLACK ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION. So you cant argue them making television series and movies and what not. Its their brand but MTV is MUSIC TELEVISION. They turned their back on the Music part. They dont even play the full length of the videos anymore.

who cares about their award shows.

I agree 100% about this post, but there's still something iconic about the Music Television Award Show.  Call me old school, but back in the day there was something exciting about gettin home from school, puttin your backpack down, and throwin on mtv's most wanted to watch bill bellemy countdown cube, warren g, and dr dre videos....and when the award show comes there was that mad hype to see snoop, dogg pound, dre, warren g, and nate get on stage and run the show.  Now, its a fraction of what the show used to represent amongst music culture.  Cross your fingers and close your eyes and pray "Hey will they invite my favorite rappers to the show or did Lady Gaga take their spot."

Gangsta rap was big in the 90s, now its not. The same reason you weren't seeing any alternative rappers on MTV "back in the day." Don't you think The Pharcyde fans in 1995 were pissed off that your cliche gangsta music was taking up all the spots?

thank god for spice yell

[love33]

MTV has fell off. MTV IS NO LONGER RELAVENT. They dont even play music videos anymore. They only skim through a few of them. BET is on the same route that MTV went down too. ITs all about reality television. Why should it matter if Game was there or not.

You don't think that helped Lil Wayne sell mad units when MTV told everyone on their award show to go buy the Carter IV on ITunes?  Imagine had Game got his mention also.

Sure it helped because all the little Jimmys and Jennys that are still in Junior High who still watch MTV will get their hands on it. But to true fans of music MTV is nothing more than a disappointment. I can still remember the days when they had like 4 or 5 different countdown shows playing different music throughout. These days you gotta tune into MTV2 in the butt crack of dawn to watch videos. Its a shame. MTV turned their back on music because they saw that the whole damn country was goo goo for reality TV. Okay BET came in and took advantage but that only lasted a few years. BET is BLACK ENTERTAINMENT TELEVISION. So you cant argue them making television series and movies and what not. Its their brand but MTV is MUSIC TELEVISION. They turned their back on the Music part. They dont even play the full length of the videos anymore.

who cares about their award shows.

I agree 100% about this post, but there's still something iconic about the Music Television Award Show.  Call me old school, but back in the day there was something exciting about gettin home from school, puttin your backpack down, and throwin on mtv's most wanted to watch bill bellemy countdown cube, warren g, and dr dre videos....and when the award show comes there was that mad hype to see snoop, dogg pound, dre, warren g, and nate get on stage and run the show.  Now, its a fraction of what the show used to represent amongst music culture.  Cross your fingers and close your eyes and pray "Hey will they invite my favorite rappers to the show or did Lady Gaga take their spot."

Gangsta rap was big in the 90s, now its not. The same reason you weren't seeing any alternative rappers on MTV "back in the day." Don't you think The Pharcyde fans in 1995 were pissed off that your cliche gangsta music was taking up all the spots?

MTV contributed to both the rising and downfall of Gangsta Rap.  There's no doubt there was a movement to phase out Gangsta Rap after the East/West war (promoted by the media) and Pac and B.I.G. ended up passing away.  Suge said in an interview that they came to him and told him to soften his artists lyrics.  You saw Dre drop the Aftermath compilation which was soft compared to his past releases lyrically.  We saw the MTV and radio playlist go from Luniz and Mack 10 to Will Smith and Puffy & Mase dancing in space suits.

It was obvious the media made a huge attempt to scale back gangsta rap.  And to this day, they have given small glimpses but never promoted it to the extent they did before.  They used to allow rappers to carry guns, point guns, use "hooker," "hoe," "ass," "blood," "crip,"......now they will even distort gang signs.  When they replay old videos they don't show them in their raw form.  Take Dre Day for example, they blank out more curse words that they used to show and they edit out the gun Dr. Dre is carrying.

We've seen videos banned by Game and Crooked I.  They would rather have young americans imitating swag and jay-z than imitating BG Knoccout and Dre'sta.

Nobody in their right mind can deny there have been efforts in the media against gangsta rap and to scale back violence in mainstream music.

"DJs need to let the ghetto back in the club"--Westside Connection

[Triple OG Rapsodie]

So during the 90s they were promoting the hard shit and scaling back the softer music, now its the opposite. Seems like a fair trade. Not something to be whining about unless you want to go back to the 90s and apologize to all the alternative rappers who got ignored in favor of gangsta posing in videos. Game's type of music isn't popular now, just like Kanye's music wouldn't have been popular back then.

[Jimmy H.]

You make it sound like Mack 10 and the Luniz were all over fucking MTV and the radio then Pac and Biggie died and they dissapeared. Luniz had one major commericial hit. Saying that the East-West feud contributed to them not having more is like arguing that the L.A. Riots were responsible for the downfall of Hammer and Vanilla Ice. You've tried throwing out this theory before and it just doesn't hold water. Puffy and Bad Boy were all over MTV in 1994. They didn't pop up there after the fact.

And who the fuck was telling Suge anything about his content? Biggie died while he was locked up in prison. I doubt high-ranking music and television executives were going through the metal detectors at a State penitentery so they could explain to him how he could run his label. Suge, in fact, said on the day of his sentence that he had met with C. DeLeros Tucker and agreed that Death Row would no longer use the "N" word on future releases. Obviously, this never came to fruition but it should be noted that 1) Tucker was not affiliated with any radio or TV outlet and 2) that Suge was sentenced months before Biggie had been murdered.

Fact is music goes through cycles. It went from Hammer and Vanilla Ice to hardcore Death Row music to Puffy and his shiny suits to DMX and his angry, grimey shit then to the softer, duet-oriented Ja Rule to 50 Cent with his gangsta music. Music content is going to change based on the demands of the consumer and maybe I'm a different kind of human being in my thinking here but I think it's far more acceptable to believe that maybe the public didn't want to listen to rappers talking about murdering each other after two of the rap game's biggest stars were killed than the industry just decided to blackball the shit out of L.A. for no good reason.